by Zoey Parker
Despite my feelings for her, I’d been using her this whole time. I’d been working her the whole time, trying to wear her down so I could learn what I needed to learn from her. I couldn’t turn back now. I had to tell Dante it was Fang.
I walked around to the front of the bed and picked up my jeans. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and opened up a new text for Dante.
Sasha shifted in her sleep and seemed to be talking to someone in a dream. My heart skipped a beat, believing I’d been caught red handed giving away the information she’d trusted me enough to share.
I walked out of the bedroom into the living room where I didn’t have to face her sleeping, trusting body while I betrayed her.
“Just this once, Cole,” I murmured. “It’s for the MC. After this, everything’s going to be straight.”
I took a deep breath and started to text Dante.
She was working for Fang, I typed, but I didn’t hit send.
I stared at my words. Sending that text message meant that everything I’d allowed to happen between us was a lie. It meant that I would be admitting to myself that I couldn’t even trust my own emotions because I had used her.
“You’re so full of shit,” I told myself. “You’re an Overlord. Remember, Hell’s Overlords will always be first.”
I took a deep breath and sent the text. I quickly closed and locked my phone. I went back to the bedroom and stuck it back into my jeans pocket.
I looked at her again, lying on my bed in the middle of my darkened room. I couldn’t force myself to climb back in that bed with her. I grabbed my phone and went back into the living room.
I grabbed my whiskey and sat back down on the couch.
What are we going to do about it? Dante asked.
We have to take him down, I texted back.
The whiskey took the edge off.
Sounds like a plan. You coming back in? he responded.
I looked into the bedroom from where I was. I could see the shape of her body in the shadows. I took a sip of my drink, letting the warmth fill me.
No, I’m busy here, I texted him back.
I understand. That answers my next question.
I smiled at the phone.
What was that going to be? I asked.
What to do about Sasha, Dante texted back.
Don’t worry about her. I’ve got her under control, I said.
Yeah, under you.
Of course. Where else?
Alright, man. See you at HQ, he said.
Give me a few days, I texted back. I don’t want her to think I just fucked her for information.
But isn’t that what you just did?
I sighed as I read his last message. I put the phone down and went into the kitchen to finish the bottle. I poured the last of it into my glass and went back into the living room, sipping the whole way.
“Is that what you just did?” I asked myself. I shook my head in response. Sasha wasn’t just another piece of ass. She was important beyond the sex and beyond the information she provided to me. She wasn’t there just to serve a purpose, I tried to convince myself.
I don’t know, I texted Dante.
Oh shit. Be careful, boss, he texted back.
I will,” I said aloud to the phone, setting it back down.
As I finished my glass, I grabbed hers and drank what was left in it. I was beginning to feel more than just the warmth of the whiskey I was drinking. I felt good. The edge was gone. The care was gone. All that was left was how I really felt about Sasha.
And it was good. I felt good about Sasha. I felt a connection to her. There was more to her than her prefect legs, her sweet little ass, her tight and welcoming sex, her perfect breasts and delicious nipples, and her deep summer sky blue eyes.
Sasha wasn’t just another woman. She wasn’t just another toy to use and toss away. And, dammit, I was starting to get angry with myself for fucking it up by using her just to get at her boss. I vowed in silence to make it up to her, even though she would never know I had taken that information from her immediately and told the MC about it.
As I slid back into bed, I knew Dante was already making preparations to track Fang down. We were going to end his operation. He was going to learn why no one else had the nerve to challenge Hell’s Overlords.
In the meantime, I was going to hold this beautiful woman lying next to me, and even though I hadn’t lost her trust, I was going to begin working to earn it back. I had violated it, whether she was aware of it or not.
I felt horrible, until I felt her against me. I knew, deep down, that what I was doing had to be done, for us. The only way we even stood a chance was to eliminate Fang. He was already after her, whether she wanted to admit it or not. He would continue to pursue no matter what. At least by taking him out, we were going to pave the way for us to continue letting this relationship grow.
I laughed at myself as I realized that Sasha’s walls weren’t the only ones coming down. Mine had apparently crumbled.
Then, it hit me. I wasn’t the only one trying to tear down the other’s walls. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so bad about betraying her trust. I looked down at the cunning woman lying next to me and I wondered what secrets she’d been planning on telling Fang when his men ambushed her in the park. Trust was a two-way street, and it seemed we had both been going the wrong way.
Chapter 12
Sasha
It was amazing how much this one job had changed my life. Instead of waking up alone in my own apartment, I was waking up every day next to a strong, caring man who had promised to protect me. Instead of waking up to more work every day, I woke up to Cole’s green eyes watching over me and to his arms, embracing me. I woke up feeling safe, comfortable, and happy. For the first time in my life, I knew what had really been missing the whole time.
There had never been anyone like Cole in my life. There had never been anyone who allowed me to feel safe and comfortable intimately. It was a different kind of intimacy from what I was normally used to with men.
Something had changed the first time we had sex. It was like the whole dynamic of our relationship shifted in those few minutes we shared of ecstasy and bliss. We were no longer at each other’s throats, except maybe to kiss each other there. We stopped trying to exert power over one another. We were together. We were equals. We had accepted each other.
We slept together a few more times in those first few days. We explored each other’s bodies as completely as time would allow, and we had all the time in the world. Cole had stayed home with me, avoiding the motorcycle club except for the occasional conversation with Dante. I hadn’t checked my phone in days, even though I was sure I would find countless messages from Fang when I did. We avoided everything beyond his balcony or his front door. We hid away from our professional lives to enjoy some personal bliss.
We spent those first few days in a paradise filled with flirtation and ecstasy. We stayed in bed. We cooked naked. We stayed up and drank late on his balcony. We drank early on his balcony. We cuddled on the couch and watched movies. We showered together. It was like a dream come true, a dream in which I could walk away from my life of crime with this man whose body and heart were strong enough to carry me to safety.
Alas, dreams were sometimes just dreams. They didn’t come true, and we eventually had to wake up to face reality.
I woke up alone. My hand rested on the empty spot where Cole’s body should have been. My head rested on his pillow. I heard murmuring from the other room, so I sat up and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. I could see the couches from the bed, and as the world came into focus, I saw Cole sliding on his boots with his phone up to his ear. It looked a lot like MC business.
I pushed the covers back and slid my naked body out of bed to see what was going on. We seriously hadn’t worn clothes in almost a week, but Cole was sitting on the center couch with his colors on over a white t-shirt and blue jeans. His hair had been brushed back, instead of hanging down in front of his face as it had been f
or a few days. He glanced up at me as I approached and ended his call, telling the person on the other line that he was on his way.
“Let me guess, you’re still going after Fang,” I stated as I walked around behind him. I leaned forward and ran my hands down his strong, firm chest.
“Of course I am,” he said plainly.
“And you’ve been looking for him behind my back this whole time,” I teased him. “That’s why you’ve kept your conversations to text messages or why you’ve taken your calls outside, huh?”
“Yeah, I didn’t want to bother you with it all,” he sort of apologized. Well, I took it as an apology. I wasn’t quite sure if he meant it that way, or if he was just trying to soften the blow.
“I thought you had dropped it, honestly,” I said, making my voice a little firmer. I let the humor and amusement go from it.
“Why would I?” he asked.
“Because we have the perfect opportunity right now to walk away from all of it,” I tried to convince him. “We can get out of the business, leave everything behind, run off together, and start a new life.” I smiled as I rattled off my fantasy to him.
“Not hardly.” He laughed. “Look, I know Fang was behind the thefts. I know now that he had you stealing product from me so he could sell it and undermine my business.”
He grabbed one of my hands and turned around, looking up to me with his kind green eyes. There wasn’t an ounce of anger or hatred in them anymore. He’d gone soft for me. When he looked at me, all I saw was tenderness. I melted when I looked into those eyes.
“Besides,” he continued, “he threatened you. He sent those thugs after you.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” I argued. “Fang would never do anything like that to me.” I tried to sound convinced. After all, Fang had been the one telling me to get out of Cole’s HQ. He had called me. It wasn’t like I had called him after being locked up to try to get him to meet me somewhere, even though that was exactly what I was planning on doing when he called.
“Sure he wouldn’t,” Cole said, letting me go and getting up from the couch. He turned his back because he was getting ready to leave, but it really felt like he was turning his back on me.
“Why do you feel like you have to defend me, though?” I asked him. “I’m not asking you to do anything like this. I don’t expect it. You haven’t been to the clubhouse in almost a week. You’ve barely spoken to anyone in the MC. I’ve completely dropped off the face of the earth since those guys in the park. Let’s cut our losses and move on, Cole.”
“Cut our losses?” He turned around and looked at me like I’d gone crazy.
“Yes, let’s call it quits. Let’s pack up what we need and hit the road. We can retire. We can both afford it,” I explained. I glanced around his nice apartment overlooking downtown as a prime example of our financial stability.
He paused a moment and looked like he was considering what I had proposed. Then he shook his head and frowned. The way I saw it, if he could have put Hell’s Overlords mostly aside for a week, there was no real reason he couldn’t just grab his money and go.
“I can’t call it quits, Sasha. The MC is all I’ve ever known. I have a responsibility to my men. When I took over the reins a few years ago, we were a small-time organization with a lot of chapters spread out and doing their own thing. Hell’s Overlords focused mostly on petty crimes. We made a pretty penny doing that, but it wasn’t sustainable. Some of our members still had real, legitimate jobs. I didn’t agree with that, so I took over and turned things around. Now, we have a reputation for being ruthless and deadly to our rivals, but we are dependable to our partners,” he explained.
I stood and listened, staring down at the floor. I felt like a child being scolded by her father. I didn’t like that feeling. I’d spent my adult life not answering to anyone but Fang, and barely even to him. The whole point of my life was not to have to answer to anybody, and I wasn’t about to start answering to someone just because I slept with him.
“Now, I can’t run out on the empire I’ve built, Sasha,” he continued. “If you want out of it all, that’s great. I’ll be happy to take care of you and protect you should your old boss come looking for you—and believe me, he will—but I can’t walk away from the Overlords.” His voice was tender and patient as he explained himself to me.
“I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you to walk away from it. I didn’t really expect you to take me seriously anyway. It’s just a fantasy I toy with every once in a while,” I said, walking around the couch and sitting down. If I was ever going to get out of this life, Cole was going to be my ticket out. Of course, if I couldn’t get him to leave the MC behind, I knew it would only be a matter of time before I got back into things through him.
“Why are you defending him?” Cole asked. “Why are you trying to keep me from going after Fang?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” I said, looking up at him. I couldn’t explain to him how I felt about my boss. Fang had taken me in and had taken care of me in much the same way Cole was talking about doing, except Fang had done it when I was very young. He could have taken advantage of me. He could have used me for so many things besides teaching me how to steal from other bosses.
Fang always had beautiful young girls around him, his private girls who took care of his needs. He had prostitutes and call girls, but he didn’t treat them like the little punk ass pimps on the street. Fang’s women did well for themselves. Fang merely offered contacts and protection. He could have thrown me into either of those positions, but he saw something in me.
“You’re special,” he would tell me. “You’re like the daughter I never had.”
“Try me,” Cole said, bringing me back to his living room, back to sitting naked on his couch while he stood in front of me fully clothed.
“Look, he’s just done a lot for me, okay?” I said. “I don’t know that I’m ready to tell you the whole story right now. Just understand that there’s a lot there. He means a lot to me, despite the fact that a lot of people would describe him as being more of a snake than a man.”
“So, you two have a pretty thick history, then.” He rephrased my words.
“Yeah, you could say that.” I nodded.
He nodded, too, and stroked his chin. His eyes were deep in thought. He looked like he was searching for some sort of compromise.
“Alright, fine, we’ll just shut down his drug business and take back what’s ours. How does that sound?” Cole asked me. He sounded like he really expected me to buy it, but I didn’t. I knew that no matter what happened when they confronted him, there would be a story about how something had gone sideways. Fang would end up getting shot either way. I couldn’t let Cole send his men after him.
“Fine, but that’s all you do,” I told him.
“It’s settled, then,” he said, nodding and turning away to finish getting ready to leave, except I wasn’t finished yet.
I stood up, feeling foolish for trying to confront him as naked as I was, but I didn’t have any other choice.
“No, it’s not settled,” I told him. “If anything happens to him, it’s on you, Cole. Understand?”
“Hey, whoa, easy now.” He put his hands gently on my arms. “Look, I mean it, we’re just shutting down his drug business. He’s got a lot of stuff going on we don’t want any part of, but we’re taking back what’s ours, from the product to the clients. You want me to have him call you when we leave?” he asked in a vaguely condescending tone.
I took a deep breath. I didn’t want to fight with him. There was no point in it. He was probably lying to me anyway. I knew I never should have let it slip that Fang had been my boss, but he probably would have found out soon enough as Fang encroached on his territory more and more with the drugs I’d stolen from him.
“You do what you want,” I finally told him, raising my hands in submission. “I’m out of it. As long as you can provide me with a way out of this life, you do whatever you feel like you n
eed to do.” I walked into the bedroom and started grabbing clothes he’d had delivered for me over the last few days.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Nowhere. I just feel foolish standing around trying to talk to you naked,” I told him, holding back any sign of anger that might have been in my voice.
“Well, at least you know you have my attention,” he joked.
“Are you saying you only take me seriously when I’m naked?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Hey, now, I didn’t say that.” He walked to the bedroom door. “Listen. That was Dante who called earlier. We think we’ve found Fang. I’m going to take a few guys with me in case things get hairy, but I’m going to try to talk him down from this new business of his, okay?”
